The CRMC Championship scheduled for Aug. 17-23, at Cragun’s Legacy Courses is still scheduled as planned — for now.
Tournament director and director of golf at Cragun’s Legacy Courses Chuck Klecatsky talks with the Mackenzie Tour — PGA Tour Canada weekly for updates on the situation.
“As of right now, the tournament is on as scheduled,” Klecatsky said, “and CRMC is still on as the title sponsor and everything like that. It’s obviously still a few months away, but it’s kind of coming up too.”
The Mackenzie Tour has already had to make some schedule changes. The second half of its qualifying school from March 24 to May 1 was postponed. Its first tournament, the Canada Life Open May 28-31 was pushed back.
“We haven’t canceled anything at this point yet,” Mackenzie Tour Vice President Scott Pritchard said. “The situation is so fluid that we are looking at a number of different scenarios and we are in touch with all of our events including the CRMC Championship.
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“We are looking at a number of options as it relates to the schedule. How that affects the CRMC Championship I’m not sure at this point. It’s just so hard to say.”
The hope is to have a Mackenzie Tour season. What it looks like is still to be determined. Pritchard said it will just follow the guidelines presented to make sure it’s safe.
“We are going to follow the guidelines sent to us by government and health agencies and we will follow those,” Pritchard said. “If that means having an event with no fans that is definitely something we will do, but we will essentially follow the guidelines that are sent out to us and work within those.”
The Mackenzie Tour is a feeder into the Korn Ferry Tour. Its top players earn Korn Ferry status which is a step below the PGA Tour.
In February, it was announced at a press conference that Minnesota native and Open champion Tom Lehman would be honorary chairman of the CRMC Championship.
The tournament also will be the first Mackenzie Tour tournament to be played in the United States.
Even though the tournament is still on as planned, Klecatsky said the Mackenzie Tour told them to put everything around the tournament on hold. They are not actively soliciting advertising sponsors or partners right now.
“It doesn’t seem like an appropriate time to talk to local businesses about supporting local events,” Klecatsky said. “Right now, we are just waiting to see what happens. Once golf gets approved to open (in Minnesota) we will be back in the mode to get partners to support the event.”
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Cragun’s Legacy Courses was scheduled to open April 15. That won’t happen, but for the CRMC Championship Klecatsky hopes by May 1 things will become more clear.
“Between May 1 and June 1 we would definitely have a decision made,” Klecatsky said. “Right now, all signs are pointing to that this is going to happen on schedule when it was supposed to be scheduled.”
Klecatsky is trying to see the positive.
“One of the things we are excited about is that when people can start gathering again, you know, we are kind of hopeful an event like the CRMC Championship that it would be a chance to bring people together, be outside and enjoy an event just like we were planning it,” he said. “We still want to focus on it being a community event and we are just trying to be respectful to the community situation we are in right now.”
